


For The Long Haul

by Nny



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Truckers, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2632598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things just had a habit of happening to Derek.</p><p>Nothing had ever happened quite so hard as Stiles had, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For The Long Haul

**Author's Note:**

> From the Tumblr prompt: _'Are you fucking kidding me?'_

Things just had a habit of happening to Derek. 

Kate, his family, the long-haul truck thing (since they hadn’t left much money, since about the only thing he could do was drive, since there was no one left to miss him when he was gone). 

Nothing had ever happened quite so hard as Stiles had, though. No one had ever quite left Derek’s ears ringing like the smack around the head that meeting Stiles had been. Loud music, louder laughter, the edge of bright teeth in the strobe lights that just about made up Beacon Hills’ gay scene. A lush mouth that Derek couldn’t take his eyes off, even with the competition of whatever the hell it was that Stiles called dancing. He’d practically tripped into Derek’s lap, and three months down the line Derek still couldn’t tell if it’d been deliberate, couldn’t tell if it was by design that now he had someone to kiss goodbye. 

It’d never been so hard to pull himself out of someone’s bed, sleep-warm and stale, but he got out of the shower to find Stiles pulling on his boots with his eyes still half closed. 

"I’ll take you to your rig," he said, knuckling sleep out of his eye, breathing still slowed down by the weight of dreaming, and there were words for this feeling only Derek wasn’t sure his tongue knew the shape of them any more. 

"I could get used to this," he said instead, pressing the words into the skin just beneath Stiles’ ear, almost lost in the rattle as the jeep’s heat tried to keep pace with the winter outside. "I could get used to having someone to come home to." 

But maybe even this watered down version was too much, because Stiles stiffened and pulled away, shoved open his door. 

"Go check in," he said, "I’ll be back," and it was with minutes to spare that Stiles’ nose pressed ice against Derek’s cheek when he kissed him goodbye, pressed the bulging bag of groceries into his hand. 

*

Derek had always been a hoarder, always eating the last of his Easter candy weeks after his sisters had run dry, so it was a day or two before he found the bumper box of condoms in the bottom of the bag and flushed bright red where no one could see, a stupid grin crawling its way onto his face and refusing to leave. 

Three months was maybe too soon for declarations, for the words that were queued up all ready and only held in check by biting his tongue, but something about the number writ large on the box felt kind of like a promise.

Kind of like romance the way that Stiles did it, slantways and ass-backwards and only if you squint. 

*

Winter painted all kinds of beautiful across the landscape, everything edged with gold in the mornings and silver late at night. It suited the people he met too; the blonde in the truck stop had lips bitten red to match what the wind had done to her cheeks, and her smile was all kinds of inviting. 

Would be. Should be, maybe. Derek asked her if she could point him to a phone. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the reception in the whole of Beacon Hills, or if Stiles was really never near his phone when Derek called. 

"Hey," he said, staring at the square plastic-wrapped cardboard box he’d taken to carrying in his pocket like some kind of idiot, and he hoped Stiles could hear the smile in his voice. "Hey, Stiles, I’ll be home soon."

*

Derek didn’t even take time to wash the road off his boots. He thumbed a lift to somewhere he could haul his duffle from, knocked snow away from the hems of his jeans as he leaned on the buzzer. 

"Hey," the speaker said, robbing any emotion from the sound of Stiles’ voice, "come on up." 

Too long without exercise made three flights harder than they ever should be, but it didn’t stop Derek from grinning as wide as the open road, from ducking in as soon as Stiles hauled open the door, but the kiss was kind of brief and Stiles pulled away as soon as he could, pulling at the strap of the bag on Derek’s shoulder and carrying it with him through to the bedroom, leaving Derek to haul his coat and boots off at the door. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" 

"…Stiles?" 

He reappeared in the doorway of his bedroom, a flush painted high on his cheekbones, everything about his posture stiff and riled like an angry cat. He held a familiar box in his hand, fingers drumming against it in an offbeat rhythm that somehow charmed all the hairs into standing on the back of Derek’s neck. 

"Are you fucking kidding me,” Stiles said again, plastic wrap crinkling as his hand tightened, and Derek spread his hands like that would somehow hold off the oncoming storm. 

"I don’t - "

"You didn’t open them?” Stiles said, and the entire world took a sudden step sideways but left Derek right where he was, off-balance and confused and facing the wrong direction entirely. 

"What?" he said, helpless, and almost tripped over himself at Stiles’ sudden advance. 

"I know what it means," Stiles hissed at him. Derek was glad one of them did. "I know what ‘someone to come home to’ means, okay, and maybe I’m an idiot for loving you enough to be o- to _deal_ with you fucking other people - “

Derek took another step back, mouth open, ears ringing - 

" - but if you think for one second you can play with my health, with my life - “

Stiles stopped and stared at the hand that had somehow wrapped itself around his wrist. Derek could quite remember moving. 

"I meant _you’re_ home,” he croaked.

"What," Stiles said, suddenly still. 

"I don’t - I meant wherever you are - " he gave up, mid-sentence, defeated. "Why would I ever want to fuck anyone who isn’t you?"

He couldn’t even wrap his mind around it, he was that far down this road, and his voice was helpless and confused and, somehow, _working_. Stiles’ shoulders eased themselves down, a breath shuddering out of him, and the corner of his mouth quirked up into something Derek wasn’t quite ready to call a grin. 

“Could’ve just said you loved me,” Stiles said, something fragile layered under the joke of it, and Derek tried to shape the breathlessness of his relief into a laugh. 

"Didn’t think you wanted to hear it," he said. 

"You’re a fucking idiot," Stiles told him as he stepped in a little closer, as he held still for Derek to carefully lean in. And of course that was how his declaration of love would go: slantways and ass-backwards, but there if you squint.


End file.
